


Any Means Necessary

by soracia



Series: alcaretinco lindalë [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 18:10:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2078076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soracia/pseuds/soracia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras endeavours to convey an apology after a particularly vicious fight. It doesn't quite go as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Any Means Necessary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maharlika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maharlika/gifts).



> So this is my first Les Mis fic and I am still finding my feet in this fandom, but this idea took hold of me and insisted on being written down, so here you go. Thanks immeasurably to [flutterings](http://archiveofourown.org/users/flutterings/pseuds/flutterings) for looking this over and cheerleading and basically holding my hand after getting me into this goddamned fandom in the first place. XD All of it is entirely her fault. ♥

It was one of those nights, one of those arguments where even Enjolras knew he'd crossed a line, and maybe it had been a little worse than usual - it was hard for Grantaire to tell, really, after awhile all the cuts blurred together in his mind, and if this one was a little deeper than sometimes, it still barely registered as a standout, but in any case it was still a shock when Enjolras tracked him down the next day to very stiffly and carefully apologise. 

Grantaire leaned against the doorjamb and tilted his head at him, studying his face and picking out the nuances of his expression - he got to look all the time, in a meeting or various other gatherings of Les Amis, but it was rare that he got a look from this close, unless they were shouting in each other's faces, and that was a very different expression to the one he wore now. _This_ one...he eyed it bemusedly for a moment, and wondered absently if it was better or worse that he wasn't actually drunk at the moment. 

"Oh. That," he murmured, having almost forgotten he was supposed to be replying. "It was forgiven, the instant after you said it." Which did not mean he'd wanted to continue sitting in the tense atmosphere with all their friends giving him sympathetic looks, however, so he'd left early, as he sometimes did when Enjolras had laid him open thoroughly enough that he needed a little time to put himself back together, or at least to recalibrate to something approaching normal. 

Enjolras looked frustrated by the answer, which was familiar and slightly amusing, but also doubtful, which was new and made a cold chill trickle down his spine. _Don't go there, please don't go there._ Weren't they done here? An apology wasn't necessary, but surely once it was given there was nothing else to discuss, and this could go on to blow over like every other fight they'd ever had. 

The last thing he needed was for Enjolras to question how and why forgiveness was so easily given, or why an apology wasn't needed at all. The last thing he wanted was to _talk_ about it, this thing they did and how it made him feel, why he did it and what it all meant to him. Why he kept coming back and picking fights again and again, even when it meant provoking the sharpest, cruelest edge of Enjolras' tongue. Even when it meant that Enjolras cut him open in such a bloody way that all of their friends watched him in worry and sympathy for days after, when sometimes he ended up getting blind drunk just to dull the edge a bit before he could safely handle putting the jagged, sharp-edged pieces of his soul back together without cutting his fingers on them. 

He didn't want to talk about any of that at all, so Enjolras should really just take him at his word and go on about his business like normal. Who the hell had talked him into apologising anyway? Grantaire was sure it hadn't been his idea, and he was going to have _words_ with someone over this, especially if Enjolras refused to just drop it now that he'd gotten it out.

"I know that I have a temper," Enjolras pushed on, determined, "and you seem to bring it out worse than most. I - I'm sorry that I end up - saying things I don't mean," he added haltingly. 

_Things I don't mean._ Oh, lovely. The sick drop in his stomach informed Grantaire that yes, Enjolras was going there, wasn't going to let it go (as if he ever did that anyway), and they were talking about this. He closed his eyes briefly, and straightened up from where he was leaning, fixing Enjolras with a hard look. 

"You apologised already," he pointed out with an approximation of his usual dry and mocking smirk. "If you keep doing that, I really will wonder about your health, are you dying? Why are you apologising at all?" he asked, buying some time. "Did Courfeyrac put you up to this?"

Enjolras blinked at him, several odd emotions passing across his face quickly, and then he shook his head, looking frustrated again. "Not...exactly - I can admit when I've made an error and - and try to make amends," he insisted.

"No!" Grantaire practically snarled at him, cutting him off and slamming his hands against the wall on either side of him, crowding him there and glaring for all he was worth. An error? As if it was something he regretted, something he didn't want to do again. "Don't you dare," he said with quiet, almost vicious intensity. "Don't you dare take this away from me."

Taken aback, as if he couldn't quite understand how he'd suddenly ended up against a wall instead of in the doorway, or what exactly what going on, Enjolras stared at him for a moment, clearly lost.

"You...don't want me to apologise to you for saying terrible things?" he hazarded finally, as if he really could not understand what the problem was, or why Grantaire was objecting. 

This close up, with that almost vulnerable look in his eyes, he looked entirely too kissable, and Grantaire spun away from him, letting him go and dragging rough fingers through his own hair. 

"No," he said tightly, both agreement and disagreement, and abruptly turned to head back into his flat, leaving the door open for Enjolras to follow if he wished. Really what he needed was a drink, but he found himself making coffee instead, enough for two. He heard Enjolras follow him in a moment later, the door closing softly behind him, but he didn't bother to look, taking a few minutes to concentrate entirely on his task instead of the disaster of a conversation they were currently having. 

Enjolras just never could leave well enough alone. "You don't want me to apologise, or that's not what you meant?" he persisted, watching Grantaire through narrowed eyes. 

"Both," Grantaire told him shortly. "Sit down and shut up for a minute, if you insist on having this conversation. I'm not doing it sober, and I damn well need the caffeine." Amazingly enough, Enjolras actually did find a seat and said nothing further for the moment, though Grantaire could hear him fidgeting restlessly. 

He poured two large mugs of coffee when it was ready, fixing Enjolras' the way he liked it and adding a generous amount of whiskey to his own, taking a pull straight from the bottle before he put it away. On second thought, he took it with him.

Silently handing Enjolras his coffee, he took a seat of his own and set the bottle of whiskey down beside his chair, hoping he wouldn't need it because that would mean this went very badly indeed, but he figured there was better than even chances of it. 

"Can I talk now?" Enjolras asked impatiently, sitting on the edge of his chair and cradling the hot mug in his hands, frowning down at it in a way that managed to look both frustrated and confused. Adorable. 

Grantaire simply nodded at him, feeling exhausted already and steadily drinking his coffee, because the sooner he got it into him the better. 

"I don't understand what - I don't know why you...what is the problem," Enjolras burst out finally, "with me apologising to you. Is it because...because you think someone 'put me up to it', as you called it?"

Grantaire snorted softly. "No. Well," he amended, "maybe a little." He waved this away, inconsequential. Words, oh yes, he was going to be having them, but later. "My problem is - what are you apologising for, and why are you apologising for it." Though it was a question, and phrased like one, it came out as a flat statement.

Enjolras stared at him, one of the intense, brow-furrowed stares that meant he was thinking hard about something, trying to figure it out, piecing together a puzzle. "I don't understand," he said quietly at last, sounding almost uncertain in a way that made Grantaire's heart ache, and he cursed it as he took another drink. 

Sighing heavily, Grantaire ran his fingers through his curls again; they were already hopelessly messy. "Let's recap, shall we?" he said meditatively, and thank fuck the alcohol was kicking in finally. "We had a fight, you lost your temper, it was magnificent, you said things you didn't mean to, and then, for some reason, you decided this morning that you regretted it, or someone told you should, more likely, and you came over _to my house_ to tell me that you're sorry for--" He paused, replaying the conversation in his mind. 

"For losing your temper, I think, and for saying, as you put it, terrible things." He shook his head grimly, opened his mouth to say something else, then closed it again. "Does that about cover it?"

Enjolras was watching him closely, following every twitch and flicker of his expression, searching and studying with an intensity in his bright blue eyes that made Grantaire deeply grateful to be sitting down, because it made him feel weak at the knees. 

"That's...right," Enjolras said cautiously at last, as if he wasn't sure it was true, as if it rang false to him when he said it. He'd looked a bit startled and as if he wanted to question the 'magnificent' part, but mercifully this time he let it go. "I - when I lose my temper like that, I say - I say things I don't mean, I just--"

Grantaire cut him off. "Things you don't mean, or things you didn't mean to say?" he interjected sharply, a sliver of a merciless mocking smile reappearing on his face. "There is a difference, and normally I'd assume you were aware of it, but today I am beginning to wonder," he noted dryly. 

Silenced for a moment, Enjolras turned his attention to his coffee, sipping at it for a long minute before he took a deep breath and nodded at Grantaire. "I am aware," he said finally. "Sometimes...sometimes both. I may say things that I mean in part, but too harshly, or I may say things that I don't mean at all, but which I know will--" He paused, an actual flush creeping up the side of his neck to colour his face, and Grantaire stared blankly at it, a little fascinated. 

"Are you _blushing_?" he asked incredulously. "That you know will - what, Enjolras?" he taunted, unable to resist drawing him out on this. "Cut me down, crush me, leave me bleeding at your feet?"

Enjolras winced, but the colour did not leave his face. If anything, it intensified. He was embarrassed about this, Grantaire realised, something to do with this. 

"All of that," he admitted softly, and it did sound like an admission, like it cost him. "That I know means I will...win," he said carefully at last, actually looking away for the first time. "Sometimes, I can see the final strike, I _know_ exactly what to say to finish it, to..." He bit his lip, and Grantaire's eyes fixed on it helplessly, yearning to know what it tasted like. "And I'm so caught up in the anger and the...the fight, that I say it without thinking, or just because..." He stopped suddenly, not as if he'd run out of words, but as if he'd run into a wall that prevented him from saying what had been on his tongue. 

Ever since that heat had crept into his face, he'd been picking his way through what he was saying as if he were avoiding landmines, even moreso than usual, and Grantaire was having the feeling that there were some very significant things going unsaid here. Enjolras was avoiding something, and it was something that embarrassed him, or something he was ashamed of. Grantaire could barely fathom this man, always so sure and certain and forceful, being shamed or embarrassed by anything. 

He refocused on his coffee to give himself time to think, dragging his thoughts back from the admittedly fascinating tangent they were currently on. Or was it a tangent? Was it, possibly, more relevant than he thought? He frowned deeply, finishing off his coffee and getting up to refill it, raising a questioning eyebrow at Enjolras as he held out a hand for his as well. It was handed over silently, and he went over to fill them both, coming back to his seat and handing off the fresh cup to Enjolras as he did so, feeling slightly bemused by the fact that he was currently looking _down_ at a golden god sitting incongruously in his small, drab flat. 

His fingers itched to touch that hair, ruffle through it and stroke it down again, but he simply sank back into his chair with a heavy sigh, reaching for the whiskey to doctor up his coffee. To his surprise, a hand reached out in his line of vision, Enjolras silently requesting him to hand the bottle over once he was done. He blinked, frowned and reluctantly did so, more because he couldn't say no than because he was comfortable giving up a crutch he was still sure he was going to need at some point - then stared in astonishment as Enjolras added some to his own cup as well. That...was not where he thought that was going.

"So," he said finally, when they were both resettled and the silence was starting to get awkward. "This apology of yours." He was slouched back comfortably into the chair, alcohol making his limbs loose and sprawling. Enjolras still looked entirely too tense, but that was right, he was always intense, as he should be. At least he wasn't vibrating on the edge of his seat anymore. 

Enjolras took a deep breath. "I still don't understand," he began carefully. "You said--" He stopped, shaking his head and running a frustrated hand through his curls, but Grantaire remembered what he'd said. _Don't take this away from me._ Enjolras clearly had no idea what 'this' was. "Why were you - why did that make you angry?" he said finally, almost helplessly, and the sound of it twisted unpleasantly in Grantaire's stomach. Enjolras should never sound helpless - not like that. 

"Because it's goddamn insulting," Grantaire growled at him as the question sank in, feeling the anger stirring all over again. "You're going to apologise to me, for that? For the only thing you ever give me? For saying _things you don't mean_ , as if I couldn't fucking well tell the difference? Christ, Enjolras." He shook his head in disbelief, but the words still poured out of him as if a dam had broken; he couldn't hold them back. "You're _sorry_ that you fight with me, that you and me have this thing we do that nobody else can do, that's beautiful and terrible and fucking amazing, that I can push you so far you pull out all the stops and find a precision instrument to decimate me with, even if it's something you don't mean? You're _sorry_ for all of that? Fuck you. I don't ask for much, I've never asked you for _anything_ but this - don't take this away from me," he said grimly. _It's all I have. It's all I have of you._

Enjolras blinked at him, lips slightly parted as he stared back, stunned. Grantaire wanted to kiss him so badly it hurt, and he clenched his fist to dig his fingernails into his palm. It didn't help all that much, but it did ground him a little.

"I'm not sorry for - all of that," Enjolras admitted finally, and that fascinating flush was creeping back again. "But if I - when I hurt you, shouldn't I apologise for that?" He was staring down into his coffee cup as if there was something mesmerising in the depths of it, hands white-knuckled where they were clutched around it. The way he said it pulled Grantaire up short, and he went still, studying his favourite subject with excruciating attention to detail. Those landmines, again. There was something here he didn't know, something Enjolras didn't want _anyone_ to know, unless he missed his guess, and wasn't that interesting. 

"No," Grantaire said at last. "Not like that, not _for_ that. When you - win, as you put it," he noted sardonically, "when I've wound you up until you lash out and _destroy_ me, are you under the impression that isn't what I meant to do? That it's not--" He stopped, running into a landmine of his own, and swallowed hard. This conversation was so not what he'd thought it was going to be, and he wasn't nearly drunk enough for it. He took another long drink of his coffee, and debated himself internally. 

Enjolras looked up at that, studying him keenly, with something fierce and bright in his eyes. It hurt to look at him, and Grantaire couldn't look away. 

"You're doing it on purpose," he said slowly, as though the idea really hadn't occurred to him. "Arguing, fighting, making me angry enough to - hurt you?"

Grantaire shook his head, and bit his lip, because that was it and it wasn't. He wasn't sure he could finish this conversation at all, and was beginning to regret having let Enjolras into his flat to begin with. He held out a silent hand for the bottle of whiskey, and surprisingly, Enjolras passed it back to him without comment or look of judgement. Grantaire topped off his cup with it, and downed most of it in a couple of long drinks. 

"To lose," he said softly at last, as the whiskey burned its way down, giving him a modicum of reckless courage. "Fighting with you to _make me lose_. I want you to - all that passion, all that fire, all focused on me, stirring it up and stoking it until it blazes high enough to _consume me_. I want you to make me shut up, to make me _lose_ , to--" He broke off, eyes caught and held by the sharp intensity of Enjolras' brightly focused ones, unexpectedly not looking judgemental or disdainful at all just now but intent, anticipatory, almost...hungry, fierce like a predator who knows he's almost caught his prey, the hunt almost completed, almost successful. A god on the edge of victory. As always unable to resist handing it to him, Grantaire took a deep breath and stepped on the mine. 

"To take me apart," he finished. "In whatever way you choose. That devastation - do you think it's any less...satisfying to me?" Another mine, one he'd avoided earlier and now triggered with reckless abandon. He hesitated, watching Enjolras' expression, more odd emotions he couldn't read flickering across it, but something about what he'd said earlier, the way he'd said it, and that blush - that damnable, adorable, ridiculous _sexy_ blush. Grantaire dropped his voice unconsciously, his next words coming out low and dark, the heat in his veins creeping into it. "Do you think it's any less of a climax for me?"

The red flush streaked back up over that pristine marble face in a flashfire of scarlet, answering heat flaring up over Enjolras' skin, in his eyes, which were now burning holes into Grantaire, and Grantaire could feel the weight of them almost like a hand on his skin, a touch of fire. 

"I--" Enjolras stopped to clear his throat as his voice cracked, and catch his breath, as if Grantaire had somehow knocked it out of him, which seemed absurd, but there was still that incomprehensible, unfathomable stain of colour in his face. He was clearly at a loss for words, and a shiver so slight Grantaire would have missed it if he wasn't watching so closely shook his frame. 

"I didn't know," he murmured, eyes dropping briefly to the cup clenched tightly in his hands, then skittering back up to pin Grantaire with that piercing look again. "I feel - when we fight, I feel - so alive, so hot and brilliant like I'm burning up and when it comes to the end, when I--" He tripped over his words, clearly stumbling over another mine, then continuing anyway. Courage had never been a problem for him, and Grantaire almost envied him, but he was too busy hanging on every word, feeling somehow breathless as he waited for Enjolras to delineate his thoughts.

"When I finish it, you," he said in a soft, reverent hush, and Grantaire nearly shuddered at the idea of Enjolras finishing him. That wasn't what he meant, right? "It's so - beautiful, even when I've hurt you, the way you just - I don't have _words_ , Grantaire, that final strike, how it feels, what I've done to you, like you said - _taking you apart_ , it's the most...incredible feeling, how I've mastered you for once, the only grip I've ever had on you and it's so fleeting but you just keep coming back to do it over and over again, and still I never thought..." He stopped, suddenly wary, but still watching Grantaire with that fierce, focused expression. Oh. _Oh_. That sounded like...maybe...

"I shouldn't enjoy it so much. Fighting with you, beating you down with my words, hurting you...destroying you, you said, over and over. I never thought _you_ would - would _want_ me to." The flush in his face now looked as much guilty as embarrassed, and maybe something else, and maybe he'd been reading it wrong all along.

Grantaire absolutely didn't know what to do with any of that, so he took another drink to steady himself, pressing the fingers of his free hand into the arm of the chair so they wouldn't tremble and give him away. It was like sex. That's what Enjolras was saying, that it felt like _sex_. And it embarrassed him because he felt guilty about it, about enjoying it, the rush of it, the anger, the release of letting loose and overwhelming or annihilating a strong opponent, saying things he meant and didn't mean in order to hurt him enough to shut him down, cut him down and leave him on the floor, metaphorically, unable to continue fighting. To win, as he put it. And it gave him just as much of a thrill as Grantaire. 

Yeah, he didn't know what to do with any of that. 

"You enjoy it," he said finally in a slow, careful voice, weighing each word and watching Enjolras like a hawk for every tiny shift in his expression. "The way I stir you up, set you on fire and hand you a knife to cut me down, fight you until you make me bleed with it, let you burn me up and lash me, slash me through and leave me in pieces on the ground at your feet." He paused, watching closely for the effects of his words, at the flickering expressions as the colour in Enjolras' face grew darker with each successive phrase, blushing as fiercely as his eyes were bright, alight with something Grantaire couldn't name, or perhaps didn't want to. 

"It turns you on," he finished bluntly. "But you think, or you've been told, that you should apologise for it."

Enjolras shivered again, and Grantaire watched wonderingly as he nearly squirmed in his chair, but his eyes remained fixed on Grantaire's, and he nodded once. 

"Well," Grantaire said finally. "Don't. Don't apologise for that. Ever." He felt a bit dizzy with the charged atmosphere of tension, the insane revelations of this conversation, the possibility in the air. What kind of possibility, he didn't know and didn't dare to think. Just... "Don't stop doing it, don't apologise for it, and don't think I don't want it just as much as you. I have - when you do that to me, I feel... _unmade_ , Enjolras, like you've taken me apart with your own two hands and coaxed every last bit of life and breath in my soul out, thrown them into your fire and no matter how it hurts or how deep you cut me I will never, never not want that." He paused, just briefly, and took another drink, tearing his eyes away from the blaze of Enjolras' gaze. "Any way I can get it," he admitted softly.

He heard the soft, sharp intake of breath but didn't look up until Enjolras was moving, suddenly on his feet and coming over to stand in front of Grantaire and then, to his shock, dropping to his knees. He leaned in close, gripping the arms of the chair and watching Grantaire from a breath away, his face and his whole body burning with relentless intensity, and Grantaire shuddered as the heat washed over him. 

"Any way?" Enjolras asked him softly, his eyes alight with a question now, but he looked as though he thought he knew the answer, and as if the answer pleased him. He reached up and laid a hand on Grantaire's chest, over his heart, and Grantaire shuddered again, a soft groan escaping him along with all the breath in his body. It felt like a brand, burning effortlessly through the thin layer of his shirt, as if it were marking him, owning him.

" _Yes_ ," he agreed fiercely, to that, to anything, because really, what else could he say. If Enjolras wanted to expand their repertoire from metaphorical sex to actual physical sex, or any other kind of sex, it wasn't like he could ever say no. Possibly he should, because really there were so many things they still ought to talk about, so many things, but right now, with his entire body aware of how close Enjolras was, with all his nerve endings singing, on fire with possibility, he couldn't spare a single thought for any of them. 

Enjolras grinned, bright and fierce and alive and _joyful_ , as if he wanted this, as if he'd been given something he thought he couldn't have, which was utterly ridiculous and Grantaire was absolutely going to tell him so, whenever he could breathe again. Which was probably going to be a long while, given that Enjolras was kissing him now and _oh_. Yes. That. More of that, and he couldn't even regret the undignified whimper in his throat as he tried to push closer and get more, tangling fingers in that irresistible golden hair and opening his mouth to an assault of the sweetest fire he'd ever tasted. 

Yeah, there was...talking was going to have to wait awhile. A long while, if he had anything to say about it, and he thought with satisfaction that really, he probably _wouldn't_ have anything to say about it. That was all right. That was exactly how it should be. 

Enjolras could take him apart until he couldn't say anything at all. However he wanted, whenever and wherever he wanted, in any way and by any means he wished. Anything at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from [Any Means Necessary](http://www.metrolyrics.com/any-means-necessary-lyrics-hammerfall.html) by Hammerfall, which I was listening to when I wrote this and it turned out oddly fitting; it's rather an Enjolras song, eh.


End file.
